A tampon is defined by Webster's New 20th Century Dictionary as a plug of cotton or other absorbent material placed into a wound, cavity, etc. for the control of hemorrhage or the absorption of secretions. The word has become almost exclusively the name of a form of the product used by women during menstruation.
The effort by the industry supplying tampons has been to create more and more absorbency in order to necessitate fewer changes by the user. There has been very little departure from the original cylindrical cotton body except in the mechanical art of insertion and in the absorbency of the body itself.